


Saudade

by meujabutifugiu



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Ghosts, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7295737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meujabutifugiu/pseuds/meujabutifugiu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marinette never believed in the supernatural until she found a pair of earrings and met it's previous onwer, or better saying: her ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. As the sky catches on fire

Ladybug hesitated before jumping and Chat Noir moved only a couple of steps forward so he could stay beside her.

It was the very first time they saw anything like it - a sight that didn't belong to any of their nightly experiences, nothing like anything they’ve ever encountered before.

Thunter struck down the sky in a frightful red color and the dirty grey clouds were almost solid looking. They seemed more like heavy rocks, hovering dangerously above the pair ever so slowly, as if threatening to fall down in any given moment and crush both of them.

Right in the center of it all, as if conducting the most terrifying orchestra, was his symbol. Multi-colored lights aligning themselves perfectly to form a gigantic butterfly. Paris´s night sky burned with supernatural energy - it was shining upon them, haunting them, and at the same time, watching in complete silence, waiting.

Ladybug recalled a similar effect on an old and shattered stained glass window in a abandoned building she used to pass by from time to time. It seemed, as if there was always something or someone hiding under the darkness on the other side, observing her every movement. This time, however, it was much more than an uncomfortable feeling in her guts. It was real and transmitted a message. A threat. 

Ladybug crossed her arms above her chest. In reality, it looked more like she was wrapping herself in a hug. Maybe, subconsciously, she was mimicking the memory of someone that wasn't there,  _ couldn't been there anymore, _ in an attempt to fool her own brain into thinking everything was fine, searching for some kind of solace. She caught herself wondering about the people who lived in the apartment below her feet - were they safe? Did everyone already get a goodnight kiss? A couple of seconds later, she let her arms hang awkwardly by her side, a little bit embarrassed and a little bit cold.

The wind was like a roar that travelled across the streets of Paris, as a warning - a strong storm, a terrible calamity, the total destruction of the quantic universe´s equilibrium. Whatever it was that people imagined, it was enough to make them lock themselves inside in a silent mutual agreement. The city of light was now as empty and gloomy as the ruins of a lost civilization.  

A heavy smog descended upon the city like soot at an old train station, burning all the way into her lungs. Her breath was rapid and every time she gasped for air, she ironically, suffocated even more.

Silence echoed between them and, for an instant, Ladybug was sure she heard her desperate heartbeating getting in sync with his. In that moment they realized, just how alone they really were.

Every door and window around them were locked up. People went to bed to sleep soundly because they knew their heroes would bring another boring morning routine wrapped in a big red bow to them. They wouldn't fail. They couldn’t fail.

But they did fail. Countless times before in catastrophic ways and they were still paying the high price of their actions.

Ladybug remembered the time she cried on top of a bowl of noodles during dinner when she couldn't talk her family into turning the TV off  - it was broadcasting the emergency news. And another time, on the rooftop, when Chat Noir confessed that he relived those accidents every night before falling asleep (if, by a miracle, he got any sleep) and that even during the day the guilt would crawl in the back of his mind. In a strange way, it was comfortable to at least not being alone.

However, they were still tennagers and nothing more. So small compared to what they had to go up against. They had super abilities but still were so terrifyingly mortal. Nobody thought about that on their first day of duty. She was barely conscious of that variable and it already made her frightened of making any mistake.

Ladybug touched Chat Noir´s shoulder and she felt his body trembling inside his uniform. Instead of letting go, she grabbed him more forcefully, to the point where the boy could feel her nails sinking into his skin. If she could make him stop, maybe she would also stop shaking. There were so many questions she wanted to ask that the words started to lose themselves inside her mouth, suddenly, her stomach twisted into a knot and tears stung her eyes.

“Do you think we have any chances?” she broke.

He seemed surprised. It was the first time she demonstrated any kind of doubt or weakness in front of him. Sometimes, Ladybug felt that she’d cut all the ties that connected her to the rest of the world and the last thing she wanted was to lose was Chat Noir. Not him. Anything but him.

Chat Noir always ran his mouth about pretty much anything at any given time but the most important things, as she only discovered with time, he never really had to say. Their most meaningful conversations were always made in silence, inside their own private bubble, where the time slowed down just for them.

Ladybug felt a light touch around her hand and let go of his arm. She noticed the way his fingers were trembling just seconds before they were intertwined with hers, but she choose to focus on the tender warmness of his skin that came to her through his leather glove.  

Then, he smiled but not in a way she had ever seen before. It was more composed, more mature and Ladybug looked into his heavy-lidded, green eyes as if she’d just found a new piece for an already solved puzzle. It was kinda funny to think that, after all this time, she didn't even knew who was the one behind that mask, or even if his irises were still green without the lenses.

She would be laughing, really. If her heart didn't ache so much.

He firmly squeezed her hand. There wasn't any kind of promises, just his presence. He would be there with her until the end, no matter what. Ladybug nodded and did the same. Maybe, that wasn't the best way to offer comfort before a battle, but it was all they could give to each other at that moment.

And inside that little silent bubble, they found a spark in the midst of the darkness. There was no more doubts or fears strucking their hearts, only a strong unshakable feeling that tied them together. She wished, she had noticed that before.

But alas, hope didn´t seem so far away.

“I can do the impossible when I'm with you.” he winked.

She wasn't quite sure what part of it was him being genuine and what was him trying to humor her with a corny one-liner. Maybe a little bit of both. Nevertheless, she let herself giggle for the first time that night while he let out a single quiet laugh that was carried away by the wind.

Chat Noir took her hand and placed it in front of his lips. The girl could feel how he shaped every word on her knuckles, each syllable in a tiny kiss. His eyes were the deepest green she had ever seen, a spot of life on the city with the sky on fire.

Then, the moment presented itself again.

“I am ready whenever you are, my Lady,” he said looking foward into the unavoidable destiny.

Ladybug opened her mouth as if to say something, but before she let out a word, she felt her lips curling up into a tiny smile.

She was not letting it pass by her, not this time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heey guys, i hope you liked the chapter!! I'm always open to comments and i'd love to know what you guys think :D


	2. Reliquary

When Marinette opened the trap door, she didn’t expect to see a huge amount of boxes piled around her floor, almost keeping her  from climbing up into her room. Her mind started to frantically search for the reasons for the mess as she squeezed past the entrance, throwing her bag on a chair next to a writing desk on the way. A shiver ran down her spine as she came across the most frightening possibility:

Moving away.

“Mom,” she called, still not knowing what to think, “MOM?!”

From the upper floor, she heard her mother slowly walking from the kitchen to the stairs and soon heard her voice up in her room.

“What happened, sweetie?”

“Wha-What are these boxes doing over here?”

Still apprehensive, as if touching one of the boxes was enough to make her theory come to pass, Marinette kept herself an arm’s length away  from them. Only then, she noticed that each and every one of them was sealed shut and almost overflowing with whatever was inside. She looked around and, after making sure that all of her belongings were still in their usual places, let out a sigh of relief - everything was still there, same old mess.

“Oh, that's right. I almost forgot!” her mom showed up at the door and crossed her arms. “ Your grandma is moving away from the old house and thought it wouldn't be fair to sell my old things without my permission, so she came by this morning with all these boxes.”

The woman softly laughed, cupping her chin with one hand. 

“Even after I said that it wouldn't matter if she got rid of it all, she didn’t listen. Oh, she never listens to me, your grandma.”

Marinette wiped the dust off one box, making a clean straight line on the lid. Beneath all the dirt was something written in Chinese. However, she only recognized her mother´s name and the number 15. While rubbing her hands against her pink jeans, Marinette wondered if mothers mishearing their daughters was a tradition passed down from generation to generation in the Cheng family.

“Ok, but I mean like, what are they doing  **here** ?” To give better emphasis to her question she gesticulated around her - meaning, her room.

Sabine waved her hand dismissively.

“Well, I thought you wouldn't care, sweetie. You know that we don't have any free space to spare downstairs.”

Marinette crossed her arms and made a pouty face. That sounded like code for “that is just how things are and you are not going to talk yourself out of it” but with a lot of metaphorical sugar and sprinkles on top of it, so it wouldn't sound so imperative. 

“Besides,” she concluded, still smiling, “I thought that you would like to take a look before I went to the thrift shop tomorrow. I know how much you like that ‘vintage’  stuff.”

Sabine spoke the word between giggles, as if the term was a crazy thing her daughter had made up. Marinette smiled while rolling her eyes a little. Her mother could be so cute sometimes.

“Pretend it’s a treasure hunt!” she suggested as she went down the stairs.

Marinette didn't need any more convincing. Sabine had her at “vintage.”

“Ay Ay, Captain.” she said while leaning across her desk, searching for some tool she could use.

Marinette began to open and close her red scissors in a rhythmic motion as if it could follow her train of thought. She examined the bigger box by her side - the one that had Sabine and the number 15 on it. 

“ _ Since these boxes are not leaving until tomorrow, I better make the best of it. _ ” she thought.

Actually, that whole deal was getting more and more fun with each open box. Inside the first one was a huge amount of clothes, mostly summer dresses, tops and skirts. Marinette respected her mother´s fashion choices as a teennager - each piece was charming. She also liked the fact that her mom didn't take part in that crazy colorful mess of the 90´s. Although, people back then must have thought that she had a rather simple taste on clothes.

Marinette was so entertained trying on new (old) clothes, thinking about which would go better with her wardrobe and which needed a few adjustments, that she almost didn't notice her room becoming a typhoon of crumpled clothes. She had a system to avoid the mess, but somewhere between the second and third box, the piles started to blend together on top of her chair and desk. She decided to be more carefull when a shirt almost knocked down her monitor.  

The girl only noticed that the day flew by when she saw that the last glimmer of twilight and one faint blinking street lamp were the only things lighting up her bedroom.  She ran to the light switch and quickly went back to the smaller boxes. Inside there was fancy but yellowish from the time letter paper, pocket books with beaten up covers and numerous cassette tapes with hand-written music titles. 

Marinette sighed. She almost wished she had something to play these with. Despite being able to google each song with ease, she wanted to listen to them as they were, because there was something to it that could never be replicated. Something precious, unique experiences and secret wishes, like the time her mother took to record those songs or the reason why she had chosen to put  them together and why there was an almost brand new tape named “bakery” inside a plastic case, untouched. She wondered if it was really ok to throw away these irreplaceable items.

“Marinette, dinner time!”

Her father´s voice interrupted her thoughts and she placed the bakery tape back in the box before getting back to her feet. She climbed down the stairs, trying to get to the dinner table as soon as possible, but something stopped her on the way.

“Wow! Is that a new dress, Mari?” her mother said in a joking way while her father let out a tiny whistle.

Marinette went down the last couple of steps as gracious as a heroine in a black and white movie making her grand entrance at the ball. She softly spun herself around on the tip of her toes, making a dramatic pose complete with a hair toss.   

“Do you guys like it? It's the latest trend,” she giggled. “1990.”

“Oh, honey, do you know what this dress reminds me of?”

The girl sat at her usual place just in time to notice a broad smile on Sabine’s face and a blush on Tom’s. He  coughed, clearing his throat, like he was about to bring a very serious topic on the table.

“Mari, have we ever told you…” She leaned in her father´s direction, curious. “...About the first time we met?”

As an answer, the girl rolled her eyes and tried to focus  solely on her dinner. Her parents were all smiles to each other, almost glistening, as if they were covered in some nostalgia´s magic glitter. 

“No, not this week. I think, the last time I heard about it was last Thursday.”

“Sabine was wearing that dress, as I recall, and then it started to rain all of a sudden.” As always, they chose to ignore their daughter's’ dismay on the matter.    

“Yes, and Tom was going out to deliver some macarons. I was in such a hurry that I didn't see him coming at all and…”

“BAM! She ran into me at full speed.”

Her father was making such loud noises that the whole table and the dinner on it shook.The rice on Marinette´s fork jumped away before she could eat it. She let out a tired sigh while her mother was petrified, shaping a small “o” with her lips as if the unspeakable horror of pastries on the ground was happening right in front of her at that very second.

“Oh, there were macarons everywhere...on the sidewalk, on the streets.”

“My old man really gave me quite a lecture that time,” he made a little pause to eat a broccoli. “Didn't even wait for your mom to leave or anything.”

Sabine caressed her husband´s arm in a loving manner, trying to console him as if the fight had happened only five minutes ago.Then, in a blink of an eye, Marinette could swear her mother was 15 years old again as she spoke in a defensive way:

“And that's why I wanted go into the kitchen to repay the damage I had done.”

Marinette observed her father from the corner of her eye. He crossed his arms and frowned, a little bit insulted by the notion - the same way he would be if someone dared to say his baguettes were not fresh. 

“There was no way I'd let her go through such trouble just for a little accident, imagine that!”

“Then, I went home and spent the rest of the day learning how to bake macarons to give him on the next day!” Her mother was bubbling with happiness. “ I had to apologise, but when I got there the only thing I could think about was - that boy bakes this stuff everyday, I´m sure mine ended up terrible!”  

“But, he ate them almost in a single bite and said: ‘It´s so sweet’,” Marinette started to tell the story, knowing her parent´s lines by heart.

“Oh, no. Did I put too much sugar? I´m sorry.” 

“No, the-they were fine! I was just going to say they were almost as sweet as you, HA HA HA!” - the girl even made her voice low to imitate her father´s husky laugh.

They closed their eyes, losing themselves in that memory and like two giggling tennagers, they squeezed each other´s hands. Marinette caught herself wondering if every couple had that one story they could tell in unison or if it was just her parent´s special ability. She tried, but couldn't hold back a smile.  

“Whoa, mom, and you fell for that one-liner?” 

She faked an unpleasant tone that fit together with the comically heavy dialogue. Her father raised an eyebrow, puffed out his chest and gave her thumbs up.

“Well, it wasn't what he said but the way he said it. You should have seen that, Mari, so cute, he even stuttered.” She drank from her glass of water before going on. “Speaking of which, what about that boy?”

“What boy?” - asked Tom between his chewing.

Marinette felt like her cheeks were on fire. She was trapped. Her eyes went from her mother to her father and back again.

“MOM!” - she tried to reprehend her.

“Oh, you know that one, honey. Blond hair…”

Marinette jolted from her chair, as if she had just received an electric shock.

“BOY?? WHAT BOY?? THERE IS NO BOY, HAHA! HEY, I STILL HAVE ALL THOSE BOXES TO GO THROUGH, SO… YEAH, EXCUSE ME, BYE!

Sabine tilted her head slightly, not having a single clue about what had happened to make her daughter run up the stairs as if she was chased by a ghost, knocking the trap door shut with full force. Tom came closer to his wife, as if he was about to hear Paris´ hottest gossip.

“What boy?”

Tom, without a doubt, had to work on his whispering skills because his daughter heard him very clearly in her room upstairs, where she ran around like a hurricane, turning down picture frames and taking posters and photos off her walls. Because yes, there was actually a boy and they were classmates. And she knew that her father would make her invite him for a cup of tea, just so he could tell him Marinette´s embarrassing childhood stories with old lame photos to better illustrate the scenarios. And she just couldn't take the shame. Not right now, at least. She needed to properly introduce herself first. 

“You promised, mom. You promised you wouldn't tell!!” - she ranted in a quiet voice, stomping her way to the wardrobe.

She was so distracted in her desperate need to erase the proof of her undying crush on her classmate, that her foot got caught inside an open box. Marinette went crashing down like a dead tree, together with other clothes and objects. Luckily, the posters protected her face from the incoming impact. 

“Stupid box, getting in the way!” she whispered angrily, as if the box could talk back and apologise.

Marinette shook her legs to get the clothes stuck on them out of the way so she could get up. She hobbled the rest of the way to her wardrobe, trying not to step on anything else, and placed all the photos and other things inside of it.

It was only then that she noticed the complete mess on her floor. Her carpet was nowhere in sight. She let out a sorrowful groan.

“I better get all this stuff together before mom…”

Before she could finish her sentence, her eyes drifted to a turquoise colored box that she strangely missed - it was probably because it was in the bottom of the box she tripped on. It was almost new and there was a big bold warning on it's lid: “DO NOT OPEN”. Marinette hesitated, wondering if the imperative words her mother had written decades ago still counted for something nowadays. Still, she opened the box. 

Marinette had no idea of what she was expecting to find there, but she was a little bit disappointed by its content. She got rid of the fancy paper that was wrapped around the things inside the box and found three pieces of clothing. However, she dismissed them entirely after laying her eyes on a heart-shaped box, and this time, she opened it without any second thoughts.

The heart-shaped box was holding a pair of black earrings. They didn't seemed very expensive despite the fact that they were placed inside a cushioned box, like a precious treasure. Marinette didn't know whether she had liked them or not. She came closer and examined the earrings, trying to figure out what was so special about them after all.

“Well, they look normal.”

“ _ Maybe, it's a sentimental value _ ,” - she thought.

She made a little note on a yellow post-it as a reminder to ask her mother about it on the next day and placed the earrings back in the heart box. If they were so important, maybe she wouldn't even sell them - she would probably want them back. But then again, why were they forgotten inside a secret box in the first place? Marinette’s eyes locked on the jewelry one more time. The way they reflected the white light in her room made them look like a wet puppy's eyes pleading,  _ please, don't leave us here all alone. _

Marinette held each one next to her earlobes while facing her mirror and instantly felt like she was doing something wrong. Just like that one time when she stole a cookie from the bakery's window and couldn't control her impulses. And once in her ears, they weren't half bad. In fact, they were rather pretty and even matched her hair color, but at the end of the day, the earrings didn't belong to her. She was almost taking them off, when she heard:

“Whoa, when did I get here? I was in a dark place and then...”

Marinette turned on her heels to face the strange voice and immediately pinched herself on her arm. Hard. She was not delirious, and yet she was still hearing and seeing…  _ that. _ Shaking her head, she tried to assess the situation.

First: there was a girl in her room. Second: she had never seen that girl before. And she was standing in her room. Speaking to herself.

On top of that, she was transparent.

Marinette could see the colors and outlines of her clothes but everything seemed to be beneath a strange, unnatural blue light, moreover, she still could clearly see her pink wall as well as the empty discolored spaces where her posters used to be. The transparent girl was inside her room and Marinette saw stuff through her body. The girl was still talking but she had a hard time understanding her words. And before she was done trying to make sense of this situation, the transparent girl turned in her direction.

They both screamed. As loudly as they could.

She thought that the girl in front of her could be made of that faint vapour people breathe out during a very cold winter but, still, she was weirdly solid, and most importantly, unlike the winter vapour, she was not disappearing. The girl came closer and closer and Marinette noticed all her facial features, she could even count the freckles on her cheeks.

“Can you see me?? Are you actually seeing me??! I can't believe it. It´s been so long!! I was almost giving up!!”

Even trying her best, the other girl couldn't contain her excitement. Her long pigtails floated around despite the fact that all of the windows were closed and there wasn't any wind blowing anywhere between them. In that moment, Marinette asked herself why she couldn't move a muscle. She felt completely paralyzed.

“I´M SO HAPPY!! I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO SAY BUT I - BUT...I REALLY NEED A HUG RIGHT NOW!!”

She went towards her at full speed like a gust of wind and, pretty much like a gust of wind, passed right through her, leaving only a shiver that went down Marinette´s spine as a memento of the almost hug. The girl floated on top of Marinette´s head and did a backflip in thin air, as if the gravity in her room suddenly disappeared, and they were eye to eye once again.

“Oops, my bad. I got a little bit emotional, ha-ha. That must have been super weird for you, I mean, it was super weird even for me!”

That was about as much as she could take. Marinette turned her back on the girl and marched directly to her bed.

“You are not here!” she exclaimed.

“Hey, I said I was sorry, you don't need to give me the cold shoulder!”

Marinette placed her hands on her ears as the girl floated after her.

“I am not hearing anything,” - she raised her voice.

“Oh wow, real mature! Then why are you still answering me then?!”

“There is no one here. I'm waaaay too tired and that's why I'm hearing things. This is not happening for real. Nope. Nope. Not at all.”

Marinette kept repeating that out loud as if by doing that she, maybe, could convince herself that everything was just as normal as it always was. She climbed the stairs two steps at a time until arriving safely at her bed. The girl covered herself all the way to the top of her head and she closed her eyes shut, whispering “no” so many times that it stopped sounding like a word.

Then, she felt a strange coldness coming near her, as if a cold December wind was spreading under her blanket . Marinette dared to take a peak, only to find the girl facing her.

“Psst, you know that hiding-under-your-blanket thing doesn't actually work, right?”

Just then her mother entered the room and asked why she was screaming. Terrified, Marinette replied that she had seen a spider crawling up her leg and freaked out a little bit.


	3. Like you have seen a ghost

Marinette woke up that morning with a strange feeling that she had an awfully weird dream, something about meeting a transparent girl in her room and talking to her. She shook her head from side to side trying to dissipate her drowsiness while making a mental note of everything she had to do that day. Breakfast, then check her backpack before leaving, English exam and then adjusting her new dresses, but first getting out of the bed.

The girl stretched her arms and yawned while going down the stairs. Suddenly, she found herself staring at the room´s trapdoor - she wasn't quite sure why but she had the lingering feeling that someone was watching her every move as she walked to a vanity.

Marinette suspected that a reason for that was that her mother used to always leave the door open after waking her up; however, it was still closed. She raised an eyebrow, restless, but decided to shrug the feeling away and went on with her morning routine. Her long yawn fogged the mirror for a second.

The girl tried to focus on her face’s reflection and noticed the tired look in her eyes. It seemed like one those days when she pulled an all nighter to finish a new pattern design. Her face squinted in distaste as she lowered her head to wash it.

It must had been the soap in her eyes that made the reflection inside the mirror ripple as if she was seeing herself at the bottom of a lake. Marinette gathered a handful of water in her hands and splashed it hard against her face, fumbling around as she tried to find her towel with her eyes closed. But when she looked in the mirror once again, it wasn't her image that stared back at her.

“Sooo, are you tired of pretending you can't see me?”

Only her head and upper body were visible; the rest of it seemed to have been absorbed by the mirror as if it was an enchanted portal to Alice's world. Marinette muffled her scream with a towel and remembered why she was so tired. It wasn't a dream - it was more real than the fresh baked bread downstairs.

There was a ghost in her room and she had spent the whole night trying to ignore her presence. That had proved itself to be ridiculously hard once Marinette was called to do the dinner dishes and had to convince herself that no, no there wasn't any floating head on the wall making faces at her. Her parents were probably exchanging concerned looks while wondering if their kid had gone crazy. She felt resentment boiling in her stomach - after all, her patience had to end somewhere.

“Who are you, anyway? I don't even know you! Why do you keep following me?!”

The ghost frowned, clearly upset while floating outside of the mirror. Her face was inches away from Marinette´s - the girl could feel a cool breeze making all the hair at the nape of her neck rise.  

“If I could find a more ‘open-minded’ person, believe me, I would. But you are the only one that can see me and that means something.”

“Bu-but there is no way, ghosts are not real!! There is no way I am here talking with one, it can't be real!”

The other girl gave her a murderous look. Marinette gasped and all the horror movies she had ever seen flashed before her eyes. It was never a good idea to contradict a spirit. But she wasn't attacked. Instead, the ghost crossed her arms, almost blending with the sunlight that flooded the room.

“So you mean, you’d rather believe that you are going crazy than believe in me?”

Her voice was hoarse, as if the words were crawling through the air like a sorrowful little animal before landing in Marinette´s ears - she seemed deeply hurt. For the first time in their time together, the transparent girl was fully real and not a crazy, impossible fantasy. Marinette felt something stinging in her heart.

“Look, I didn't mean to-”

“I was locked away for such a long time! So long that I already had no idea what was me and what was that box. I forgot the world, I forgot me! I was...so...so alone.”

The transparent girl shrieked even more by a window and for a moment Marinette feared that what she wanted the most for half of a day would come to pass - that she could really disappear. She reached for her, wanting to call the ghost to come closer. But all she did was lightly nibble her lower lip upon realizing she didn't even know the name she so wanted to say.  

“I know I shouldn't be here. I should be somewhere else but...even so, that doesn't change anything…”

“But how can I help you?” Marinette stared at her feet, toes tapping against a carpet. “I'm just a normal girl, I´m not a medium or anything like that...I have never seen….”

Marinette hesitated at her last words when she noticed the ghost coming closer. Her long pigtails seemed to complement her movements like a beautiful veil.

“...someone like you.”

“Well, just talking to me is a good start,” she smiled melancholically.

“Ok then,” the other agreed despite still being overwhelmed by the situation. “I think I can do that.”

The ghost nodded and floated to the room’s ceiling as if giving her accidental roommate a little bit of personal space. Next to the windows, she looked like a soap bubble against the summer sun - dim lights gliding through the air, more color than form. Marinette went to her wardrobe and absentmindedly fished out some clothes to wear. She stopped undressing midway, strangely embarrassed, slowly growing conscious of the fact that there was someone other than her in a room.

The girl messed her bangs a bit, wondering how long would it be until she could get used to all the crazy things that were happening to her. She carelessly threw her clothes over a folding screen before hiding behind it. All that silence was starting to get painfully awkward and Marinette tried to come up with some sort of conversation topic, almost in desperation. Something was telling her that the weather wasn't such a good idea.

“So…” she started, still searching for the words in her mouth, “Where are you from? What's your name?”

What followed her attempt at a dialogue was an even more disturbing silence that made Marinette almost regret asking.

“I...came from the box?”

Her answer came like an interjection, as if she wasn't really sure and hoped that the other one could confirm if what she was saying was true or not. That or the ghost had an awful and questionable sense of joking. Marinette was seriously in doubt trying to choose between the two.

“Well...yeah,” - she couldn't deny the truth of her answer. “But what about before that?”

“I...don't know.”

“What was that?” The girl was changing her shirt over head, her voice muffled.

“I don't know! I have no idea,”she confessed.

“What about your name?”

The ghost’s answer was a long and confused “eh” sound.

Surprised, Marinette clumsily closed the folding screen, catching  it midway to keep it from falling in her mannequin´s direction. She could barely believe what she had just heard.

“I thought that ghosts had one thing, I don't know, a mission they had to resolve…” She could´t find a better analogy. “... to kick the bucket for real?”

“I know, I know!”exclaimed the girl. She had spent the night thinking about it. “I need to do something, no doubt about that!”

The ghost flew closer in a blink of an eye. Marinette recoiled a couple of steps, almost making the folding screen fall again. When would she get used to this? A little bit nervous, she observed as the other girl propped a hand on her chin, pondering.

“I just don't have a clue what it actually is.”

“Well, it can´t get any easier than that.”

“No! Wait, I'm going to remember it! I just need t...” The floating girl suddenly stopped talking, paying close attention to Marinette. “...Are those my clothes?”

Marinette looked down, trying to verify what she was actually wearing. Generally, she would have had spent a couple of hours on a previous night figuring out what to wear for class. But considering that she was trying to avoid certain ghostly happenings, the girl really didn't have the time so she just grabbed the first thing under her hand, just to have something on her. A light black jacket, a white blouse and jean shorts - that was it. She turned to face the ghost in front of her and realised that she was dressed identically.The only thing that set them apart was the ghost’s transparency.

“Where did you find these?” she asked almost aggressively.

“I think it was inside one of those boxes. They were my mom's.”Marinette recalled a moment when she took all of the clothes on a floor and just threw everything in her wardrobe. “Maybe it was in fashion?”

“Maybe, but she did have the earrings…” She raised an eyebrow, “Do you think it is some sort of coincidence? It can´t be.”

Marinette touched the earrings with the tips of her fingers and started to take off the right one - she wanted to see them up close once again. The ghost gasped like she was choking on something and quickly tried to grab the other girl’s arm so she could stop her action before it was too late. But, as before, her arm went through Marinette´s body and only caused a shiver.

“What happened?!”she asked, frightened, the right earring in her hand.

“I...for some reason…” While trying to answer, she looked at her hands, genuinely confused. “ I thought that if you took off the earring… something was going to happen to me.”

Silence.

“Like I was going to disappear or something...”

Marinette slowly reached for the other earing while the girl jolted as if to interrupt again but stopped in her tracks. This time the ghost did nothing and let her take off the left side, which  somehow appeared to be a painful process. It was comparable to watching a kid about to receive a shot, the anticipation of the pain always being worse than the procedure itself. However, when Marinette showed the tiny earrings in her hand to the ghost, she seemed curious, like something wasn't right. But the relief in her eyes was undeniable.

“Well, we can rule that off the list, at least.”

The transparent girl took a long breath, lost in her thoughts for a second. Marinette briefly wondered if that was an old habit from when she was alive or if ghosts could still breathe.

“Still, I'd like for you to keep using them,” she said and Marinette swore she could see something like a blush on her cheeks. “I feel like my presence is kind of linked with them and well, I would feel better if…”

“No problem,” the other nodded, putting the earrings back on.

“Hey, do you think you could ask your mother about me?”

Marinette´s heart jumped in dread, but before she could answer, a call came from downstairs and pulled her back to reality like an alarm clock.

“Marinette, come have breakfast or else you are going to be late!”

_Speaking of the devil._

“When I'm back from school we can see what we are going to do about it, ok?” Now it was her time to take a deep breath. “After all, I need to think about how I'm going to break the news to her that I have a ghost roommate.”

Marinette opened the trapdoor and almost started going down the steps when she saw the girl fidgeting with her long hair, as if waiting for something. She looked like a lost puppy beneath a heavy rain.

“Do you want to come with me?”

She smiled and didn't even try hiding her excitement as she dodged Marinette, floating down the stairs.

“Just so you know, I was going with you anyways.”

Marinette attempted to contain a laugh.

“I didn't say anything.”

“About what, sweetie?”

Her mother’s voice made something snap in Marinette’s mind. The ghost peeked over her shoulder, her curious eyes locked on the woman on the other side of the kitchen who was waiting for the coffee to be done, closely staring at a coffee maker as if that would make the drink get ready faster.

Marinette was a little relieved that Sabine couldn't see the translucent body floating above a dinner table, but even so, she felt like she couldn't risk explaining her crazy situation so early in a morning. After all, she had barely started to wrap her own head around it. She needed more time.

“No-Nothing...but hey, I think I’ll skip breakfast today. I´ll eat something at school.”

“Oh, don´t be silly Brid...”

Before she could finish her sentence, the crashing sound of porcelain hitting the floor filled the air. For a moment Marinette thought the reason was the ghost, but her mother’s astonished eyes went right through the transparent girl. The fright was caused by her - her solid, flesh and bones daughter standing idly in a kitchen.

“Mom..?” she called while carefully walking towards her mother.The woman didn't even blink. “Are you ok?”

Sabine shook her head as if trying to keep away some absurd thoughts, then blinked a couple of times and slowly started to come back to her senses, still breathing heavily. She rubbed her temples, trying to focus on the reality that was a broken cup at her feet.

“I´m sorry, Mari. You scared me there for a second. You look so much like...You look so much like…”

Marinette once again became aware of the clothes she had on and looked at the ghost only to notice she was staring at her too. The transparent girl had her mouth slightly open in shock as she aggressively pointed to the woman. It wasn't as if she needed to worry about hiding, but her lips were pressed in a thin line to not let any exasperation out. Marinette stepped closer. She didn't know what to do to calm her mom, but, still, that was the best opportunity they would have to ask. However, it was Sabine that started the interrogatory.

“Where did you find those clothes?”

“They were in one of the boxes. They’re yours, right?”

The woman frowned, looking troubled, as if she was silently punishing herself.

“What about the earrings?” she kept inquiring, ignoring her daughter’s question.

Marinette nodded while the woman lowered her head. Her breathing became more and more erratic, her hands were shaking a little and the girl felt her heart squeezing.

“ _Please. Don't cry, please,” -_ she thought.

“Do you want me to go change?”she offered, one hand already reaching for the jacket.

Sabine shook her head, making a silent “No”.

“What were you going to call me at that time? Was it someone else’s name?”

She felt a cold breeze around her neck and noticed a pair of transparent hands above her shoulders, as if she was confirming they were following the right path. After a couple of moments without an answer, Sabine crouched to pick up the tiny shards of broken porcelain and the girl followed her.

“You look so much like her and I didn't even noticed until now.”

She noted how her mother’s eyes seemed cloudy and heavy like a storm was about to pour down from them.

“Let’s clean that up and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“All about what?”

Sabine let out a melancholic smile.

“About my sister, Bridgette.”

  
Marinette’s eyes widened as she heard a loud gasp behind her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing Bridgette!! I hope you are liking her so far :D


	4. Heart shaped box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I´m so sorry this chapter took so long, I was moving away so I had not time at all to write and translate. I hope it's worth the wait :D

The clock on her writing desk displayed nine thirty a.m.

Under normal circumstances she would be in class, sitting at her usual spot next to Alya, listening to their teacher giving instructions for the English exam they were about to take. Only Marinette was way  too busy fighting a war inside her mind to pay any attention, because a more foolish part of her was already compromised gazing at a boy sitting in front of her. The way his golden hair flowed as he moved, how his hushed voice always said something that made  his friend try very hard to not laugh too loudly during class, a small spot at a base of his neck - each and every tiny detail was much more urgent and endearing than hearing a hundred times over that she needed to fill the answer sheets with pen, not pencil.

Marinette wasn’t too terribly worried about missing the exam, though. Actually, the girl was more disappointed that she was going to miss the chance to interact with him.

His name is Adrien.

At first, she didn’t know if being seated so close to him was a blessing or fate’s twisted idea of a joke, but she couldn’t deny the way her heart skipped a beat every time he turned in her direction to give her a hand-out or something like that. Now, she waited excitedly for every exam day.

It was only a short moment. After all, there was no reason to take more time than needed to pass a sheet of paper, but Adrien always lowered his head a little and his furtive, emerald eyes avoided hers. Marinette understood and couldn’t blame him for wanting his distance. However, at the same time the corners of his lips always barely smiled at her as if whispering a secret. All she ever wanted was to have one or two seconds more, just enough to gather some courage and find out what he was telling her or if he was even trying to say something at all. 

But the moment always passed her by.

Alya was always reminding Marinette that overthinking was one of the worst enemies in her life and while the girl admitted that there was some truth in that, she would rather be prepared for any scenario. After all, the last time she acted on impulse around him, things ended up pretty badly. 

The clock was now showing nine forty-five. Everybody was probably being reminded that they had to fill out the blanks with a pen, not a pencil and Marinette was nowhere near the classroom. Of all the reasons in the universe to miss an exam, having a talk with your mom about an aunt you didn’t even know you had as her ghost hung around because she didn’t remember her past life was pretty low on the list.

Marinette was sitting on the floor, holding the turquoise box in which she found the earrings and the clothes the day before. Her fingers restlessly tapped on its edges. She didn’t know what made her more anxious - the fact that her mother was taking a long time to arrive or the way Bridgette floated left and right next to the trap door. If her feet touched the ground, she would be close to creating a hole in a floor.

“Do you think she was telling the truth?” - she asked, almost nibbling her nails.

“Well, she has no reasons to lie.”

The ghost cupped her cheeks in desperation and appeared to be comically reenacting that famous painting of someone screaming in terror.

“Aunt?! I can’t possibly be your aunt! I'm not much older than you!”

“But you are a ghost. Who knows how long you have been...”

The girl stopped mid-sentence. She didn’t mean to sound insensitive but those words suddenly seemed so rude. Her mind was having a hard time categorizing Bridgette’s existence in a logical way. She wasn’t a hallucination but rather a person who could neither be seen, heard, or touched and she became that way because she passed away. Marinette couldn’t believe that somewhere in the past Bridgette had met her end. Even the ghost seemed to be having a difficult time trying to make sense of that. She frowned.

“How long..?”  She placed one of her hands on her neck, as if searching for something.

Bridgette closed her eyes shut and appeared to be concentrating really hard on something inside herself. The other girl didn’t figure out why the ghost was doing that until she tried to do it herself, feeling a tiny rhythmic beat against her fingertips in response. 

Bridgette was searching her pulse, some kind of a frivolous confirmation for the condition she was in. Her shoulders tensed up in anger as the empty seconds ticked away and then, she let out a small, bitter laugh.

“It’s weird, you know? I don’t feel that much different from when I was alive,” - she sighed.

Marinette opened her mouth, as if to say something, but found herself lost for words - everything sounded like a shallow sympathy. She understood a concept of a death but never had to look it straight in the eyes. Everyone around her was still alive and fully  healthy. How could she say she understood Bridgette’s feelings? She didn’t. At all.

“Sometimes, I swear, I can feel my heart beating.”

The ghost’s eyes were dark and deep like the sea. For a second, the girl had the impression of seeing something sinking in their depths, a rupture in a young life, shadows of past memories  fading away in the distance, almost gone but not forgotten. Not yet. Marinette caught herself lost in those troubled waters. Her chest felt heavy, an invisible someone tightening a rope around her heart and she was really hoping her mother would arrive before she drowned completely.

“Mari, sweetie?”  The voice has hoarse, but she knew who it was.

“Hey, Mom.”

Sabine looked small and fragile standing by a door. The slightest breeze through the window could break her apart. She was evidently trying to wipe her sadness away, but seemed to have given up at some point. Her eyes were still puffed red and tears had drawn tiny rivers down her face. She didn’t bother hiding her heavy breathing anymore.

The girl noticed that she was carrying a small photo album with her, not much bigger than her pocket sketchbook. She almost got up but her mother sat alongside her on a floor. Marinette’s eyes drifted to the ghost, a silent ask for help: “What should I say? Where should I start?” In response, Bridgette only got closer, fidgeting anxiously with her hair. She was just as at a loss as Marinette.

Although she had many questions, the ghost didn’t know where to start and even if she stopped being so nervous, whatever she could say or do wouldn’t matter, since she was invisible to Sabine. So, she waited. She only had Marinette at that moment.

“So...I have an aunt?” - the girl started with a half smile, trying to break the sorrowful mood.

Sabine placed her hands on a photo album and hesitated as if she was about to open her own personal Pandora box. Still, she tried her best to give her daughter a tiny smile - it seemed painful.

“It’s not like I was hiding it from you, sweetie, but...” - she paused. “Bridgette is a sensitive topic in our family. I never quite knew where to start...”

The girls looked at each other in confusion. Then, the ghost frowned and crossed her arms, trying her best to recall anything she could, just as the other approached her mom. Marinette didn’t want to pressure her into talking about something that was causing her so much pain. She didn’t want to see her cry all over again. So instead, she gently touched her on the shoulder, asking:

“Do I really look that much like her?”

Sabine laughed softly. This time it was sincere. The decision came almost immediately - it was finally the right time to open that album. All photos’ colors were slightly yellowish due to their age. Some were starting to fade despite each page being protected by a thin, plastic cover. Marinette looked in amazement at all the younger versions of her relatives. She never really took the time to look at those old family albums.   


“A little bit,” - Her mother pointed to a photo of a young teenager with a kid wrapped in her arms. “You’ve got your differences, of course, but I never noticed your similarities before. My memory might be starting to fail me...Here, look.”

The child didn’t look much older than seven years old and both of the girls had huge smiles on their faces. The youngest was missing one of her front teeth, making her look incredibly cute. Marinette’s eyes shifted to a date on a bottom corner of the photograph: April 1982. She almost gasped. It was a little hard to believe that one day a long time ago, her mother was such a tiny child. Marinette quickly glanced at the ghost spying over her shoulder.

“Well, that's me, no doubts about that.” - confirmed Bridgette, her voice unnecessarily low. “But I still can’t remember a thing about it.”

Marinette returned her sight to a photo. The teenager had tiny freckles around her nose; her face was thinner and more angular than her own but there was one more curious, shared trait. Ever since she could remember, Sabine had always tied her hair into pigtails. It was also the first hairstyle Marinette had learned to do by herself and even now it was her go-to style when she had nothing more elaborate in mind.

The girl had never wondered if there was any particular reason behind her mother’s preferences, but now, as Sabine flipped through the pages, she was slowly starting to understand. Everywhere she looked she saw Bridgette with her long pigtails falling down her shoulders. Always smiling, so close and yet so far away.

“You seem to have liked each other,” - Marinette observed.

“A lot, actually. I adored Bridgette, she was the best older sister I could have ever had. Even after she started giving our parents trouble when she was around your age.”

“Me?! What did I do?!” exclaimed the ghost, losing her focus completely.

“What did she do?” repeated the girl, trying not to laugh.

Sabine whispered as though she knew that the person she was talking about was around.

“When she was fifteen, she started to sneak out at night. She slept during classes… if she didn’t decide to skip school, that is. Our parents loved to blame her friends even though she never introduced them to us. They told us she must have been hanging around with delinquents. Oh, and your grandfather swears to this day he sometimes heard a boy’s voice in her room after midnight... but he never caught anyone there.”

Glancing over, Marinette noticed the ghost looking completely astonished.Since she had no way to dispute the accusations, she just shrugged while trying to cover what looked like a thick blush. To her daughter’s relief, Sabine now appeared to be more nostalgic about her memories instead of being troubled, so she thought it was ok to make a little joke.

“Wow, scandalous!” - she teased the embarrassed ghost.

“I remember they were fighting a lot in the last years and then…” Sabine’s voice failed and any hint of humor was gone.

The silence between them was heavy and almost tangible. Marinette wished she could reach out to break it. The cracking noise the album made as her mother turned its pages filled the room and the anticipation only made the sound louder.

In a few moments Sabine was the one to break the stillness of the room. From the last page of the album she took out an old newspaper clipping. Almost as big as the palm of her hand, a clear photo of Bridgette on it, big words in a middle - “Missing Teenager”. Her mother took a deep breath before going on.

“One day she just vanished. On the first day, my parents thought she was just being reckless, but then, a week passed by and there were no signs of her,” - She started to peel the plastic cover at the edge of the page. “She never came back.”

Marinette kept holding the article in her hand, trying not to damage further the the worn out paper while the ghost read it over her shoulder.

“Wha-What happened?” - She was afraid to know.

“No one knows. I was too little when it happened, so they mostly kept me out it. After a while, I discovered there were several cases of missing teenagers in Paris during that time but nothing too concrete. I don’t even know if they looked deep into that.”

Sabine sighed and caressed Marinette´s cheek but the girl´s eyes were glued on Bridgette. Covering her face with hands, trying to block away the sunlight, the ghost groaned in a low voice. Marinette wanted to ask what was wrong, but remembered she couldn’t do that with her mother there. So she held the words in her mouth, nibbling her lower lip anxiously. 

Something wasn't right. 

“One night, I went into her room. It was on the last floor of the house, just like yours. The window was open and I found her earrings just sitting there,” - Sabine tried to blink away the tears that were coming. “I thought that was a sign that she was going to come back, so I took them and saved them on that heart shaped box for her. Then I waited…”

For some reason, Marinette started to feel burning stings in her temples and the pain was rapidly increasing. In just a couple of seconds, it felt like someone was crushing her skull and it could easily break apart, just like that porcelain cup did earlier on a kitchen floor.

“Not too long after that, a policeman came to say that they were going to close the search and that it was possible she was already dead by then. They said that, but no one ever found her…” - Once again Sabine hesitated, almost choking on her words. “...her body and then, our parents decided to sell her things… They wanted to get over the loss somehow.”

“I snuck these clothes away at the last second. They were her favorites. Somehow I kept thinking that Bridgette would be so mad when she’d found out our parents had sold everything. I continued to wait. I never believed she was dead, not even for a second.”

The girl grabbed her mother’s hand, trying to stay focused on that moment despite the pain. Sabine lowered her head and gulped for air before she spoke again.

“Maybe because, deep down, I still blame myself for letting her go at that day…”

The ghost froze in a fetal position. Her body was bent and shaking while her hands grabbed her head, as if she was sharing Marinette’s pain. She didn’t seem to be listening to a word they were saying, completely lost to whatever was happening to her, to the both of them.

“ _ Bridgette, what is going on? _ ” she inquired in thought, as though the other could hear her.

“…I...I'm so...scared...” - the ghost whispered and Marinette felt a vertigo sensation, feeling herself falling fast from the sky despite being on a ground.

The world blurred around her and Marinette suddenly felt some kind of magnetic force taking her somewhere. She wasn’t scared. Rather, it was a nostalgic feeling, like standing on a beach during the summer, the sea breeze sweeping her pain away, but at the same time taking everything else too. Her mother’s touch, the ghost in her room... even her own existence was escaping through her finger, like tiny grains of sand.

Unexpectedly, a familiar voice at the edge of her consciousness warned that it was way too dangerous to get this far from her mind. And although she didn’t know what was happening or where she was going, Marinette couldn’t help but let herself go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya guys, i hope you liked the chapter - I'd love to hear your opnion, what do you think about the fic so far? ~


	5. Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE, I'M NOT DEAD!!

“Why…?” She thought to herself. “Why am I so scared?”

The girl had been sitting on her windowsill for a while by then: one foot barely touching her bedroom floor and the other  dangling in the air next to a tree branch. Two easy leaps and a short run was all she had to do - she had done it before. Yet, there was this sour taste at the back of her throat, a falling feeling in her gut that she couldn’t get rid of - all this hesitation; it didn’t make sense. It didn’t fit. _It wasn’t her_.

She prided herself in never running from her problems - and really, the girl was sure she could list at least four things that were more dangerous than what she had to face tonight, but a tiny part of her wished _-prayed-_ that at least this once, she could listen to her father and just stay in her bedroom and get some sleep for a change.

“Bridgette!”

The girl's heart body-slammed her ribcage when she heard the small voice calling her name. She turned her head in the door´s direction only to find a child bathed by the moonlight that came came from the window. Bridgette jolted up and walked to her sister almost on her tiptoes, carefully weighing her steps, trying to be as quiet as possible.

“Sabine, what did I say about coming into my room at night?!” She tried to sound patient, but her fright seeped into her whispering voice.

“Not to come after the lights are out…” answered the little girl, making a pouty face, “but..! But, I want to eat pudding and your name is all over it. Can I have it? Please, please, preeety ple-”

Sabine stopped in her tracks once she felt her older sister's hand patting her head. Bridgette took a deep breath, trying to calm down - it could have been worse. If her parents had been the ones showing up at the door, she didn’t know what she would have done. The older sister tried out one of her best smiles but, for some reason, it didn’t seem to fit properly on her face anymore, but that didn’t matter because her room was pitch black and her little sister would never notice her lack of talent for lying.

“You know mom doesn’t want you eating sweets after dinner.”

Sabine lips quivered a little bit as she held the pudding, feeling totally cornered. Bridgette was endeared by how she didn’t seem able to break a rule, so cute and totally different from her. The little girl lifted her eyes, the room dead silent for a second, before her tiny voice said:

“Were you leaving again?”

That question drove through Bridgette like a sharp knife. She always let herself forget that Sabine wasn’t so little anymore.  At ten years old, she was completely able to identify her older sister's´ standard behavior - something that annoyed their parents to no end. Bridgette´s heart beat like a drum as  she tried to imagine the extent of what her sister actually knew, at that moment. She  could only hope it was nothing more than her window leaping into the night.

The older one knelt down and  tried not to  appear as nervous as she was when facing the little girl in front of her. She grabbed Sabine by the shoulders, kindly enough as to not frighten her but firmly enough to let her know she should pay attention to what was being said:

“You know what? You can keep my pudding and I promise not to tell mom and dad as long as you don’t tell them I was gone for the night, ok?”

Her little sister´s jaw dropped.

“Lying??” she questioned, raising her voice in shock.

Bridgette waved her hand up and down, attempting to make Sabine understand that she should keep her voice down. As an answer, her small grey eyes opened wide as she quickly covered her mouth.

“No, it´s not lying!” Bridgette stopped in her tracks, trying to find a nicer way to phrase it. “It´s a secret, a sister’s secret! Between you and me, okay? No one else can know about it!”

Sabine still looked dubious. The oldest took a deep breath, gathering all the courage she had left; it wasn’t easy being honest. Truth always had to be a magic show, flamboyant excuses for half-truths ornamented with pretty distractions as to evade the seeing eyes of what was really going on under the curtains. Smiles and giggles wouldn't do any good now. She would try to let down her make-believes, as much as she possibly could.

“Listen, Sabine, your sister has to go and do something really important right now. It can´t be later. It can´t be tomorrow. I have to go now! I have a friend that can get hurt really really badly if I leave him all alone and I can´t let that happen ag…” She lowered her eyes for a second, nibbling her lip, trying to escape the bad omens clouding her mind. “I just... I need... **I need to go**! Do you understand?”

The youngest didn’t let out a sound; instead, she lifted her little finger, offering the safest and most important form of contract - when you are a kid, at least. Bridgette sighed in relief as she locked their fingers together.

“It´s our secret, then?”

“It´s our secret!”

Sabine seemed lost in thought for a second; she grabbed the tiny dessert tightly in her hands - just remembering the most important matter in that entire conversation.

“Can I have it?” she pleaded with a tiny but overly sweet  voice.

The girl couldn't help but hug Sabine and allowed herself the luxury of a smile. The little one gasped in surprise and, with her free hand, tried to return the awkward embrace, but despite the cozy warmth and cotton candy scented shampoo, Bridgette could still feel the ominous sensation from outside, sneaking past her window and crawling up her back. The city asleep and so silent; she could hear how it was starting to break apart ever so slightly. Agonizingly. Calling for help. Calling for **_her_**.

Bridgette knew she had to oblige. It wasn´t a matter of choice. But for a little while, she would like to pretend that the only thing she had to worry about was her parent’s curfew, the fact that she would probably be grounded tomorrow for sneaking out and giving late night snacks to her sister. Being that “girl trouble” was easier, it was a comfortable mask she didn't mind as much - it was far less complicated than actually being the one fixing up the troubles, patching all the same old cracks perfectly. But she had to. _They had to_.

But as sweet as a dream is, cold mornings always come to wake you up - even if you refuse to get out of the bed. She knew she couldn't pretend forever and the hug was getting awfully long - Sabine was starting to shift between her arms, not wanting to stay but too considerate to break them apart. The oldest sister took a deep breath, trying to find whatever piece of bravery she had left inside of her.

“Bridgette?” - she felt little taps on her shoulder.

She needed to let go.

Or she was going to end up crying.

“You can have all my share these week, Binnie.” she whispered as if they were about to open a magnificent treasure chest.

As Bridgette turned on her heels, leaving Sabine alone to eating her pudding, her steps felt heavy against the wooden floor and loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. Tried as she might to make her walk to the window as light as possible, she was so nervous that the only thing her legs were able to do was march.

This time, the girl jumped right through before she had time to hesitate again, she couldn't let anxiety get the better of her for a second longer. It was only when she landed on the wet grass outside that a small voice asked her:

“When are you coming back?” It was only  a whisper, but there was still something urgent in her tone.

The girl looked up, catching only a glimpse of Sabine's raven black hair at the window - she was probably on the tips of her toes. Bridgette´s voice stuck in her throat for a moment; the words came out her mouth like a hiccup.

“As fast as I can.”

Bridgette didn´t wait for Sabine to answer. Her voice sounded like promises she didn´t know if she could keep; it was better to leave in silence. Having decided that, she sprinted  into the night. Usually, the girl would find herself a dark alley just so she wouldn't have to go up the gigantic slope on her street - but she could feel Sabine´s gaze burning into  her back, so she turned around and waved goodbye before hiding in a corner, hoping that would be enough to make her little sister go to her room already.

The teenager was out of breath, her sides stinging with a sharp annoying pain every time she tried to gulp for air. From the very top of the slope, her street seemed to flow away like a river, strong waters taking her home and her family to some unknown distant ocean. Sabine on the tip of her toes by the window was like a lighthouse starting to fade away behind the mist. Bridgette tried to catch that light so that she could stay afloat in those turbulent waters.

She didn’t know why, but for some reason, that felt like a goodbye.

“...” - a small voice called her name and snapped the girl out of her reflections.

“...ette…”

A muffled small sound. It was so familiar.

“Marinette!! Sweetie, are you ok?!”

Marinette was startled by how fast her consciousness came rushing back. The girl remembered being taken over by an almost numbing sensation and although the headache had completely vanished, she felt drowsy as if she had just woken up from  a deep and long sleep. However, it didn’t seem like that much time had passed at all; she was still on the same spot on the floor, her mother by her side - the only difference being that Sabine was now desperately fumbling at  her face, checking her cheeks, neck, and forehead looking for an explanation for her daughter´s state.

“Wha...What just happened?” she asked, her voice faltering. 

“I don´t know, Mari. You went pale as a sheet of paper and started crying out of nowhere...Are you ok? Is your blood pressure low?”

Now that her mother said it, Marinette realised her face was wet and that tears kept rolling down her face and she wasn't even feeling it, almost like this was happening entirely on its own. She took a deep breath and tried to dry all that salt water with her jacket's sleeve, but despite the clean face, her heart still felt heavy after everything she saw.

_Did she really see all that?_

For a moment, it was like going to the movies, except  that she was the audience and the main character at the same time, not knowing what was happening and having lived it all once before. She felt each and every exasperated beat inside Bridgette's chest, the wind against her body when she jumped out the window and the wood texture of a tree that didn’t even exist anymore under her fingertips. Mostly, however, she felt that bitter melancholy when she had to turn her back on that cold night, the house drifting away forever.

“It´s ok, mom. I´m alright.” - she tried to reassure her.

“I´m sorry, sweetie,” Sabine said,kissing her daughter´s forehead. “ Here I was telling you all those things and never once did it occur to me to ask  how you were feeling about them. It must had overwhelmed you.”

“Sabine, no. I´m the one who is sorry. How could I forget you?” Marinette almost jumped at the sound of Bridgette´s voice. “I missed you so so much…”

She let out a small laugh.

“It´s weird. You look just like mom now.”

Marinette watched over her mother’s shoulder as the ghost approached them, her arm raised as if she wanted to pet Sabine´s head, just like she did in that recently acquired memory.However, her hand completely went through it and at that moment Marinette saw something had broken inside Bridgette - she tried to touch her sister countless times as if in the next try, if only she tried just one more time, her hand would turn solid again and they would be able to touch.But to no avail. The ghost seemed so lost and sorrowful that Marinette couldn't hold back anymore; her tears were falling from her blue eyes like waterfalls.

Suddenly, Marinette felt herself wrapped in her mother arms and the ghost gave them a puzzled look, eyes drifting from them to her hands and back again, desperately trying to understand what she was lacking. 

“You are so sweet, Mari.” Sabine whispered. “You even cry over other people’s sadness.”

Marinette was actually  disgusted with herself. She was a despicable, horrible person for stealing Bridgette´s most precious wish right before her eyes, and she didn’t know how compensate for it. The only solution that came to her was hugging Sabine back, as tightly as she could - trying to make it up for the reunion they would never have. And then, the girl felt engulfed by a strange nostalgia: she wanted to take her mother in her arms and lull her sadness away.

At the end of that thought, Marinette realised how weird it was for her to want that. She never carried her mother. Even if she wanted to, Sabine would never have  fit in her arms -she had never lived a moment like that and could never miss it. Her blue eyes landed on the ghost wearing a melancholic smile on her face.

Those feelings may be strange to her, but not to Bridgette.

“You know, I don't want my sister to be a scar I´m trying to hide away or forget.” She paused after slowly letting go. “I want to remember her as the beautiful memory that she is, so…”

Sabine got up and took the heart-shaped box off her daughter´s writing desk. After not giving the post it left there on the night before so much as a brief read, she crumpled the tiny yellow note and tossed it in a trash can beside the desk. 

“I want you to have it all, sweetie. The earrings, the clothes - use them to your heart’s content, if you still want them. They deserve a little bit of air instead of being locked inside all those boxes.”

Marinette smiled, silently thanking her. The old album was now in her hands. As if her mother knew they were going to be needed at some point, she added:

“You can keep the album too. And don´t worry about it, you can give it back whenever you want.”

The girl opened her mouth as if to say something, but she was rudely interrupted by the growling of her own stomach, desperately pleading for the breakfast it hadn’t  had - completely ruining the touching moment between mother and daughters that was happening at the moment. Marinette let out an awkward laugh.

“I´ll go downstairs and make you some coffee, Mari,” Sabine said to a daughter with blushing cheeks. “I have to hurry; your dad must be crazy busy at the bakery.”

Sabine stretched her back a little before heading towards the door. Marinette got up and, out of habit, took her phone out of her pocket to check the time. Suddenly she felt like an old cartoon character at the verge of being knocked down. Her anvil was the crushing realisation that an english test was going on at her school and she wasn't in the classroom, not even near the school gates for that matter.

 “Mom...I...I had an exam today.”

Marinette´s smiled nervously, feeling her heart body slamming her chest just at the thought of what her mother would say. One shall not miss exam days at school, under no circumstances - NEVER- unless one was considered too sick to leave the bed - that was possibly one of  the most important rules on their household. And now, for the first time ever, it lay broken right before their eyes.

She expected to receive the most mortal of stares and the worst lecture of history, but, strangely enough, Sabine just sighed tiredly while crossing her arms, as if surrendering to the situation.

“Ok, I´ll call you in sick.” The girl eye´s sparkled upon hearing those words, so Sabine added, her eyes narrowing, “But don´t get used to it; today was an exception.”

“It´s our secret, then?” Marinette asked.

Sabine let out a small smile.“It´s our secret.”

Bridgette watched as her little sister started to make her way through the door and down the stairs and, suddenly, the ghost turned herself to Marinette - her voice was urgent.

“Please, can you tell her -”

“Mom!” she called and Sabine pushed the trapdoor open again. “Whatever happened...it wasn't your fault, please, don't blame yourself.”

Her smile was tiny and passed way too fast, but for the first time that morning it didn't look like her heart was being pierced by a thousand glass shards. It was still a little sad, something was broken and hurting - but it was getting better.Marinette sighed, feeling that everything was going to be ok eventually.

They kept the silence for a while. Sabine´s footsteps going down the stairs was the only sound filling the room and when they vanished completely, the ghost squealed anxiously almost like she was about to explode with all the things she wanted to say.

“Oh my god, I need to tell you what I just remembered!! You will not believ-”

“I know.” she said, blankly.

“Uh...You know what? I haven't told you a thing.” The ghost frowned, “You are killing my moment here.”

“How weird would it be if I told you that I kiiinda remembered the thing with you?”

“Wait. You mean, you saw my memory at the same time that I recalled it?” the other girl nodded. “Yeah...pretty weird.”

“Right?! I mean I don´t even know what happened, “ Marinette said, messing with her bangs as she tried to think, “ I started to feel some sort of headache when you were trembling and then I just passed out...and it just...came to me?”

Bridgette´s eyebrows rose in confusion, and it hit Marinette just how crazy everything sounded. Granted that a few hours ago the girl would never have believed her words either, but she couldn't deny everything that she saw, everything that she felt. Bridgette shivered for a moment - and the other girl found that a little funny, since she was a literal ghost getting freaked out.

“Yikes, so it’s like we are connected or something?”

“I...I guess so?”

The transparent girl crossed her legs, sitting on thin air. She opened her mouth to say something, but her voice failed to come out - the laughs arrived a second later as a cover up and Marinette wondered why Bridgette´s eyes seemed to be glued on the floor.

“Hey… Well, do you think…” The ghost started to roll the tips of one of her pigtails around her finger. “When you were crying, do you think...well, a little bit of that could have been from me? You know...since we are connected and all.”

“Did you want to cry?”

“Desperately,” she confirmed, a little bit embarrassed.

Marinette lips curled into a tiny smile as she flipped absentmindedly through  the album.

“It could be. I mean, Mom did say I was crying even before waking up.” Marinette tried to lighten the mood and paused for a second before adding, “ And I´m not that much of a crybaby for starters.”

“ Pssh. Yeah, right.” Bridgette snorted but then completed in a much softer tone, “You are so silly Marinette, you even cry at other people's sadness.”

Silence.

“ But thank you, I mean it.” The ghost gave her a warm smile.

At that moment, Bridgette sounded so distant, as if she could disappear in a blink of Marinette´s eyes. But before she could let out a word, the girl felt something land gently above her feet and the girl promptly lowered herself to pick it up  - when she rose, the transparent girl was right beside her with her curious blue eyes.

The object in question was an old polaroid that was probably loose inside the album. The image was pretty blurry and the people on it were just barely in the frame. The first one was a girl with a long blond braid, her face above the tip of her nose was out of the photo, but there was a beauty spot on her left cheek and her pink colored lips shaped a flawless smile worth of a toothpaste ad. By the angle of her elbow Marinette could only supposed she had her arm around her friend's shoulders.The second one, Bridgette, only had the top of her head on the picture, the shape of her eyes hinting that she was probably smiling too.

Marinette thought that she really took for granted how easy it was to take selfies with her smartphone all these years.

“Bridgette and Allegra, Spring ´85.” she read at the bottom of the photo, the letters written in pink ink were starting to fade. “ Do you remember that?”

The ghost squinted trying to make sense of the blurry people framed in that polaroid.

“No…but maybe if I concentrate really hard something will happen!”

“Wow, hold on there! You will end up frying my brain.” She meant it as a joke, but now that she had  said it - maybe it could happen. “Do you think she is one of your delinquent friends?”

“I´M NOT A DELINQUENT! NEITHER IS SHE...PROBABLY, I GUESS!!”

“I´m just kidding, just kidding!”

Marinette giggled as she put the polaroid inside her sketchbook, she had to admit that having Bridgette around was pretty fun - painful headaches apart. Then, she placed the album inside her desk drawer before heading to her wardrobe to get a fresh change of clothes. After  all of that, she deserved a warm cup of coffee and a long shower.

“What I´m saying is: I really want to know the story behind you and your mysterious friends.”

As soon as the girl pulled her wardrobe's door open a flood of posters and photos started to pour down between them. The ghost notice the same pattern in all those pieces of papers - every single one of them had the same blond boy with emerald eyes, his name printed in different styles of typography on several fashion magazines covers. Marinette felt like her cheeks were on fire as Bridgette smiled mischievously.

  
“Adrien, huh? Now that's a story I really want to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I´m so so so sorry you guys!! I literally have no excuse for being this late other than life happens and translating takes a lot of time ; ; But I hope you liked the chapter, believe it or not I dropped A LOT of very important hints *wink wink*
> 
> btw, feel free to follow me on tumblr or twitter @meujabutifugiu (i can't get the link thing to work, but bear with me).
> 
> Gueeees who is introduced next chapter???


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